RE: Podokesauridae, Problems of Nomenclature Returned

["Jaime A. Headden" <qilongia@yahoo.com>]

David Marjanovic and Tim Williams both wrote on how Podokesauridae can be
established when it's eponym is considered a _nomen dubium_.

  There are two sides to this. One is where a nominative specimen lacks
apomorphies, then whatever systematic work done on it and it alone is
considered in poor judgement and not used consequentially. However, the
name and "family" were established quite a while ago, early into the 20th
century, and then it was practical to name groups on the basis of even
scrappy material. This is how the group name was established above
*Podokesaurus*. At the time, it was considered distinctive. Now, not so.
Plus, the prescence of the few apomorphies it does possess appear to show
it is a "coelophysoid", though Padian and Gauthier followed Olsen and
Padian separately to consider it possibly Theropoda incertae sedis. From
what I have seen, the postcrania appears to indicate a coelophyse-like animal.

=====
Jaime A. Headden

  Little steps are often the hardest to take.  We are too used to making leaps 
in the face of adversity, that a simple skip is so hard to do.  We should all 
learn to walk soft, walk small, see the world around us rather than zoom by it.

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